


Right on the Tip of Your Tongue

by shambling



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Gen, Season 2 compliant, asphasia, no spoilers for after season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-15
Updated: 2021-03-15
Packaged: 2021-03-23 18:48:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30059940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shambling/pseuds/shambling
Summary: The strangest thing Leo realised about asphasia, was that it didn't always seem to happen in the same way
Relationships: Leo Fitz & Jemma Simmons
Comments: 9
Kudos: 7





	Right on the Tip of Your Tongue

The strangest thing, he realised, was that having aphasia - word finding difficulties, the doctor called it, as though he had lost his intelligence not just his words - the strangest thing was that it didn't always seem to happen in the same way. 

Sometimes it seemed as though all the words he wanted were there in his head, but he couldn't quite remember how to shape his mouth to make them come out. Like being drunk and sitting over your own shoulder, and he would trail off in the middle of a sound, trying to remember the sound that came next and how to say it. It was almost like a stutter, repeating the sound he wanted, waiting for the other half to come to him. Infuriating, when it was there in his mind but he couldn't seem to get it all the way to his tongue, and people smiling pityingly at him. The poor broken genius.

Sometimes, it was more as though someone had removed the word from his mental dictionary, like nothing he could do would bring it back, the space where the word had been wiped cleaner than a blank disk, and he would stutter and stammer, willing the word to come to him, or else describe his way around it, reaching for things with similar meaning or descriptions until someone, usually Simmonds, supplied the gap. "It's simple, we just need to sit down, have a good chat and a cup of, erm, of, warm, liquid, leaves, you have it with milk..." He preferred those to the ones he could remember but not speak, it was easier to not be able to remember at all.

But strangest was when the words just came, flowing out at a normal speed, cadence and intonation, as though bypassing his brain and coming straight from the central nervous system. Admittedly they were usually rote conversational phrases, answers, How are you? Fine thanks, how are you? Milk 1 sugar, please. But brief moments of calm, where his brain and his words cooperated and he remembered what it was like before. 

He found his hands harder, because they were less reliable, but still they would sometimes seem to operate on their own, doing shirt buttons, stirring mugs, operating a fork. And then he would stop and think about them again and find himself marvelling at the magic and mystery of the human hand, not quite able to remember the series of impulses to control it, to bend it to his will.

Jemma kept telling him he was lucky, that the fact the connections were there at all were a sign of healing, that it would get easier, that it would get better. And then he would forget something obvious but simple like Mac's name, or the day or the time or the year, and she would get a sad look in her eyes and it felt like drowning all over again. Or sometimes it seemed like the word he wanted was right there, on the tip of his tongue, waiting to come out and he couldn't quite manage it, and he would find himself oddly furious, incandescent with rage at his own body for letting him down, but the moments passed as fast as they came.

Some days, Leo felt a lot like nothing had changed at all. Some days, he knew that things would never be the same again.

**Author's Note:**

> Have I just given my exact experience of frontal/parietal lobe damage after a bad head injury and the subsequent asphasia to Fitz? Yes, yes I have. Christ its weird seeing your own recovery reflected on telly though, they've got the expression of it fairly spot on, which I like/find unsettling. So heres a fun little character study of what it feels like when you can't find your words, or work your hands. Brains, so weird. Write what you know eh?


End file.
